So, I lay on the living room sofa, drifting off into a strange and uncomfortable sleep. Matthew had given up on the stuffed animals with hands up their arses performances and was wielding the remote control by himself, channel-hopping from one unsuitable programme, to another.
The room seemed to be rocking gently as I half opened my eyes. There was a hazy atmosphere, a scent of something that I couldn’t quite place. The smell of tar – of roadworks? No, more like a garage. Motor oil.
For a split second I saw Adam.
He was sitting on the chair opposite the sofa. Bum plonked on a tea towel issued by The Wife, because he was wearing his bike overalls; “And our sofa might be second-hand, Adam, but try not to make it look any shittier than it already does.”
He was holding his head in his hands. He was muttering one of his favourite expressions of frustration with Rachael Russell nee-Stanley.
“Aarrghh… someone PLEASE kill me before I do it myself!”
This was an utterance that I usually heard several times a week. It was Adam’s standard response to what some might call my spirited and challenging nature. Or as Adam chose to view it, “your stubborn-as-a-sodding-pig, sheer bloody-mindedness.”
I jerked out of my snooze and tried to sit up, but the imprint of Adam had vanished and instead had been replaced by the oh-so real flesh and bone incarnation of his son. Who, for reasons unbeknownst to us mere mortals, had been rocking my head from side-to-side whilst singing ‘Yellow Submarine.’ He had also precariously placed his cup of milk between my legs. It sloshed all over my jeans.
Matthew pressed a grimy finger onto the tip of my nose. Squashed it down.
“Ha. Ugly Mummy. But I’ll still kiss you.”
I puckered up and obliged. Then he moved onto providing me with a strange version of a head massage. It involved wiping rather more jam from his gloopy sandwich into my hair than I would have hoped for. I ignored the sticky hair issue as I tried to enjoy a rare-son snuggle.
And then I cried. Naked self-pity.
I cried because of my inability to reign in that wilful and volatile streak; a character flaw which had caused me – yet again - to mouth off at a man who genuinely seemed to care for me. A man who I had been getting far too keen on. Even if he was one of your posh, parasitic politicians.
And I cried for my children too. By rights, they should be sitting here with Adam – not me - rubbing jam into his hair, sloshing milk all over him. And then more; tears fell for Adam’s parents too. Doing their best to hold it together, but both empty husks of the people that they had once been. Losing a child – whether a nipper or an adult - brings a pain that no one can ever come to terms with.
And finally, back to me again. I cried because I missed Adam. I missed the way that he would simply walk off in the middle of an argument because he – quite correctly – felt that “This isn’t a row – this is a rant. And you’re monopolising the oxygen around here.” I cried because I missed his inconsistent generosity; the way that he would quite happily devour half a dead cow purchased from his favourite farm shop in Holmfirth with no sense of guilt whatsoever, but would stop the car and pull over if a butterfly got trapped under the windscreen wipers. I cried because I missed every night in bed with him – never any awkwardness between us. I cried because I missed the way that he would bite into pens and pencils and end up breaking them. Because of his ridiculous habit of opening a dozen different cereal packets at a time; “Because I like to make life more interesting by having a different cereal every day. You’re the boring one - you - with your Marmite toast.”
When I cry, it’s never just over one thing.
And although Matthew knew what an adult’s leaky eyes signify, it didn’t seem to bother him. He simply wiped away my tears with his fingers, dabbing them with the corner of his jammy crusts, whilst he still continued to stare at the TV, pondering; “Poor Mummy. You’re silly, you are.”
Children have an uncanny ability of being right about things, sometimes.
One hour later, Matthew was in bed and I had decided to take a bath, aiming to console myself with a large glass of wine and a chubby candle purchased from the pound shop in Holmfirth. Lydia had proudly presented me with it on Mother’s Day. It claimed to be ‘lavender and patchouli scented’, but unfortunately smelled more like I had accidentally melted a bottle of Toilet Duck in the bathroom, so I quickly snuffed it out and lobbed it into the bin. The fifteen minutes in the bath, though, had proven to be useful. I had shaken off the crippling wave of grief and had been engaging in some serious self-talk. I had decided to come to terms with the fact that my relationship with Michael had been just a brief thing; one of those in-betweeners.
Yeah, it was still too early to get involved with somebody else. I would buck up and concentrate on the kids, the café, the chocolate and the women at work. That little lot needed me, a lot more than Mr Up Himself Politician and his London-Luvvies did, anyway.
Yeah. Sod the men. Focus on the people who really deserve the help.
CHAPTER 15
I yanked the plug from the bath, put on my dressing gown and wandered downstairs, glass of wine in hand. Pausing at the TV in the living room, I contemplated whether it would be sensible to torture myself further with more media details on the unholy row that my daughter had unwittingly released.
The doorbell chimed. Probably Mrs Finnigan from next door. She tended to do this of a Tuesday night. It was bin collection day and she enjoyed engaging me with a regular bitch-fest about the wanton mess, destruction and general negligence operated by the yobbos who masqueraded as our municipal refuse collection team.
But it wasn’t Mrs F.
And it appeared that the issue at hand wasn’t going to be about the effective collection and disposal of household waste.
A flickering orange streetlight emphasised the slight bend in his nose. An injury inflicted on him many moons ago when some kid at Ilkley Grammar School had kicked him in the face during a particularly rambunctious rugby match.
All six foot five inches of Medlock’s head honcho happened to be standing, oh-so-casually, on my doorstep. Immaculately suited and booted. At least he had the courtesy to look just a tad bit sheepish. (Which was unusual for him.)
“Not interrupting you putting the kids to bed or anything, am I?”
There was only a light rainfall but the wind was beginning to whip itself into an autumn squall. His coat glittered with tiny jewels of moisture.
“No.”
His eyes left mine as he glanced down at the doorstep. An empty yogurt carton was rolling around there, rattled by a gust from the north.
“Would you look at that?” I said, half-wondering as to why I was sounding so apologetic. “Bloody binmen. But no… It’s just Matthew here at the moment. He should be asleep by now.”
Sick to the back teeth of the usual Power Ranger or Marvel Superhero storybook shenanigans, I had demanded that Matthew listen to some nice, old-fashioned fairy tales before bedtime. But whilst the kid himself had experienced them to be “as boring as poo,” they must have struck a chord with me. Because I could now imagine certain sibilant words as they floated down the stairs from Matthew’s bedroom, towards the front door.
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in...”
Shaun wiped sparkles of rain from his brow.
“Alright if I come in, Stan? It’s right nippy tonight. Looks like it’s going to freeze over.”
My hackles rose. No bugger else ever called me that - ‘Stan.’ Shaun felt that it was his exclusive prerogative. But I did my best to ignore it and stepped back from the door, allowing him over the threshold. He took off his coat and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair. Then he loosened his tie.
“Just been to a conference in Leeds. Dull as hell. One shitty, long day of it. Thought I’d forgo the M62. Drive back over the tops instead.”
“Yeah?” I picked up a random sock and a set of plastic vampire teeth which Matthew had left on the kitchen table. “Surely it
would have been more direct to drive back to your side of Manchester through Sheffield? Holme isn’t exactly on the way.”
“Well, you can’t beat the hills over this way, can you? Holme Moss… it's always been my favourite drive. Better on the bike of course, but leathers aren’t the best sort of apparel for my line of work these days. Not the image, really.”
“Right. So, is that you thinking that your average Council Tax payer in Medlock is daft enough to be taken in by a senior manager who wears Armani and drives the latest Lexus? As opposed to someone who might come across like a normal person? A bit less of the aesthetics and more of the humility might not go amiss with your local residents.”
“I’ll ignore that comment, Stan.” Then he gestured to my glass of wine. “Any of that going?”
“Aren’t you driving?”
“Just one will be fine. I’m a big fella. Remember?”
I took a glass out of the kitchen cabinet and poured him a drink. My hand was shaking. He took the drink from me and nodded at my dressing gown;
“Like the leopard-skin print. Classy.”
“Cheers.”
“Goes well with the slippers." I glanced down. I had forgotten about the slippers. Enormous furry dog-shaped things that Lydia and Grandma had conspired to purchase as a birthday present for me. My mother knew that I would hate them. She liked to do things like that.
He followed me through to the living room and sat down on the sofa. Sipped his wine.
“Not bad stuff, this. Must be paying you too much at the women’s centre if you’ve started partaking of the finer things in life. And far too nice to be drinking on your own, it must be said…”
“Must it? Because funnily enough, Shaun, I don’t have much of a choice these days. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
I looked – deliberately - over at the family portrait that hung on the wall.
It had been taken only six weeks before Adam was killed. We didn’t normally go in for that kind of thing as he had always objected (“too cheesy – too chavvy. And you’re too hideously unattractive Rachael…”) but one of my little hobbies had been entering competitions - and it turned out that I had won the portrait sitting thanks to a local newspaper prize draw. I must have been on a bit of a roll at that point in time. A stroke of good luck. Because it had been the same time of year when I had won the toilet-roll trip to Cape Town. A holiday that Adam had ended up going on with his mate, Big Jim, instead of me; “I’m not bloody dragging the kids to South Africa, Adam. Imagine Matthew airborne for over twelve hours! No – you can go with Jim instead. You’ll have more fun anyway, doing your boys-stuff, without me dragging you around museums and the like.”
So, I had won The Holiday Of A Lifetime. Which really, should have been billed as The Holiday To End A Lifetime. An impromptu vacation where Adam had vanished from us, for all eternity - thanks to that damned freak accident.
But at least the photo-op had been a good little win. I had persuaded Adam to “get over your wanabee upper-class prejudices, you great big snob. What are you waiting for? Someone to commission a royal artist to paint a portrait of us lot?” And the picture was indeed a beaut. It captured all four of us laughing out loud – even toddling Matthew - whose predominating facial expressions were either a grump, a grimace or a cacked-in-his pants gurn. Adam’s shirt sleeves had been rolled up during the photo session because he had arrived to meet us at the studio after tinkering with Big Jim’s bike. Oil stains on his cuffs, along with a tell-tale combo-whiff of diesel and Theakston’s Old Peculiar; “It’s bloody Saturday, Rach. Helping a mate out. Give us a break and smile for the camera – you miserable old tart!”
Shaun followed my eyes. He had the decency to look slightly abashed. But only for a split second. Self-assurance in spades.
“Well… that was more of a reference to your recently acquired taste for other… finer things in life.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Mr Chiswick. You told me last week that you were going to London for the weekend, didn’t you? So, then. How was The Big Smoke?”
“Nice. But then you should no doubt be aware of that yourself. Always hurtling to and from your important London stuff, in your first-class West Coast train compartments.”
“Yeah, well, not so much these days. Cutbacks mean that we’ve been seeing a lot more meetings taking place in the regions.”
“Ah, yeah. Leeds – like you said. Slumming it. God, poor you.”
“Anyway. I’m not here to talk about that. You left a message. And I seem to have received lots of missed calls from you. Renee said that you were trying to get in touch. That you were claiming that something was urgent.”
“Oh, so she does pass messages on then, does she? If she feels that they might be worthy enough to warrant the attention of her Lord and Master.”
“She also said that you were very rude to her. Not like you, that…”
He crossed his arms and showed me a sardonic grin. So, I told him;
“Yeah, well. Your Renee got as good as she gives. You should send her along to Sisters’ Space sometime. She could definitely do with attending one of our courses about passive-aggressive behaviour. We also do training on how to implement the principles of co-operation when working with other females.”
“Jesus. Training on ‘women and co-operation’? No wonder you're short of cash there. Wasting your budgets on that sort of crap. Once Roger retires and I end up stepping into his shoes, pointless training will be the first thing out of the window in Medlock.”
For all of his opinions and bluntness with regards to anything and everything, the one thing that Shaun didn’t do, was engage with me in the gender war of words. Whether my observations were intended as light-hearted conversation, or whether they possessed profound meanderings in relation to misogyny or the patriarchy, Shaun just didn’t bite the bullet.
“It’s boring,” he had told me, shortly after we first began working together some sixteen years ago. I had been recounting my disgust at a particularly vile girlie calendar that adorned the walls of a local housing repairs contractor. I had said how offensive it was, how it made me feel very uncomfortable, but Shaun had just responded; “I take your point, Stan, but – it’s just boring. Dull. I mean – there isn’t even a debate to be had. Men that get off on having photos of lasses like that up on their walls. Well, they’re just thick-as-pig-shit Neanderthals. So why bother stressing about it? You’re not going to change the opinions of pillocks like that. Get over it.”
I’d said, “But it’s totally wrong! Stuff like this should be banned from anywhere – especially a workplace! Just allowing it… it’s reinforcing the fact that it’s okay to view women as sexual objects.”
“Well, as much as you don’t like it, Stan, a hell of a lot of men do see women like that. And by taking their girlie calendars off them, you’re just encouraging them to go and buy a wank-rag from the corner shop so that they can drool over lasses in secret. And the way that the internet is going – one day pretty soon - any bloody building contractor will be able to copy something onto a phone or whatever and shove it up his sleeve. Have a sneaky little tommy-tank in the corner of the office whilst your back is turned. Surely, that would be worse?”
“Whether women are viewed like that in secret or out in the open isn’t the issue. What I’m talking about is changing the mindset of future generations — ”
“I’m bored,” said Shaun. “I’ve stopped listening. I’d rather go and sort my rent arrears out.”
He rubbed his eyes and winced, revealing a sudden glimmer of tiredness. This surprised me; Shaun looking weary. Of course, he had a growth of stubble on his chin, but that had always been present. And these days it marked an act of defiance, two-fingers to the clean-shaven versus beardy brigade trend that predominates. But back in the day, Shaun had mastered the unshaven look as a badge of honour; Mr Tough Yorkshireman Doesn’t Need to Shave For You Mancunian Lot. And the tired vibes were not a result of his get-up either. The
pristinely ironed shirt, the pressed tie, and the gleaming shoes were as they had always been, even when we’d worked in social housing, patrolling some of the grottiest properties in Manchester.
Maybe it was a work problem. Maybe Roger - Medlock Council’s CEO - was an evil git to work for, after all. As opposed to being the buffoon in a one hundred and eighty thousand pounds post that everyone else took him to be. But viewing Shaun - even with the slightest sign of his defences being on the wane – had always thrown me off guard. I was about to soften the conversational sparring and ask him what the problem was, when his phone suddenly rang. His eyes flicked towards it; starting that tell-tale involuntary muscle spasm in the corner of his left eye. His finger nudged the ‘decline’ button. In the past, I would have avoided the issue, but these days the wheel of fortune had left me in a rather different position. These days I had nothing to lose. So, I said;
“Was that your wife?”
With the emphasis being on the noun.
The noun component of the sentence was a comparatively new state of affairs. And one which Shaun had neglected to inform me of - whilst we had been tearing at each other’s clothes, parked up in his Lexus and squirrelled away in some grubby Mancunian car park, some fifteen months ago. How the hell you can forget to tell the person you’re regularly screwing, that you’ve just gotten hitched to someone else, I don’t know. But Shaun had had a pretty good try at that one. And looking back on it, his explanation about the recent tan – that he had received it courtesy of a long weekend at Bolton Abbey, as opposed to their week’s honeymoon in Fiji - had also been one hell of a classic.
So, yeah. I had been engaging in official adultery, without realising it. And it had only been two weeks longer, before I discovered the truth. A former colleague from Whalley Range housing office had bumped into me in the frozen food aisle of Medlock’s Sainsbury’s and had happened to mention that Shaun had finally gotten wed to his long-term girlfriend. “Nearly twenty years, the poor woman's waited!”
Cuckoo in the Chocolate Page 15